Am I reading between the lines correctly that the refractometer calculator in BeerSmith may be inaccurate when calculating fermented/ing wort?

once i got my correction factor adjusted through some trial/error, mine has never been off my hydrometer. I do both on occasion and they always match within .01 gravity points. and this has been the same through 3 hydrometers over the years.

not sure why some folks have problems. starting to think its guys who wear glasses or something...

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The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.

Am I reading between the lines correctly that the refractometer calculator in BeerSmith may be inaccurate when calculating fermented/ing wort?

once i got my correction factor adjusted through some trial/error, mine has never been off my hydrometer. I do both on occasion and they always match within .01 gravity points. and this has been the same through 3 hydrometers over the years.

not sure why some folks have problems. starting to think its guys who wear glasses or something...

Am I reading between the lines correctly that the refractometer calculator in BeerSmith may be inaccurate when calculating fermented/ing wort?

once i got my correction factor adjusted through some trial/error, mine has never been off my hydrometer. I do both on occasion and they always match within .01 gravity points. and this has been the same through 3 hydrometers over the years.

not sure why some folks have problems. starting to think its guys who wear glasses or something...

What correction factor do you use?

will need to check at home.

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The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.

I calibrate with water (tap or distilled, you can't measure the difference) before every brew session.

When I do my quarterly brewing checklist, I also calibrate against a 20°Bx sucrose solution.

I keep the refractometer in my fermentation chamber, unless I'm fermenting a lager, in which case I keep it in the house. The closer to the calibration temperature (mine is 20°C), the better.

If the grain bill isn't similar to something I've checked before, I take both refractometer and hydrometer OG readings and record the WCF. The FG equation is cubic, so small errors in the WCF will be compounded.

I use a small syringe to pull ~1 mL of beer, and discard it twice to "rinse" out any sanitizer before taking the sample for testing.

That's all that comes to mind. A two-point calibration is definitely where to start.

Did you happen to use Rahr Pilsner malt as your base grain? It's thought to be pre-acidified by the maltster, causing its acidity contribution to the mash to be greater than other base malts. That could result in better attenuation than expected.

Interesting. I haven't heard a lot of positive feedback on Rahr pilsner, but I use Rahr 2-row quite a bit. For this batch I used the end of a bag of Best Malz pilsner. Good stuff!

Sean, do you have a link to a good set of pro brewer level hydrometers?

Any decent supplier will carry them as a set of three. They're large (~16" long) for high precision, generally cover something like 0-8, 8-16, and 16-24°P, and have a thermometer and correction scale. Just an example: http://www.gwkent.com/plato-hydrometers-with-build-inthermometer.html If you have a Foxx account, theirs are about half the price.

Am I reading between the lines correctly that the refractometer calculator in BeerSmith may be inaccurate when calculating fermented/ing wort?

once i got my correction factor adjusted through some trial/error, mine has never been off my hydrometer. I do both on occasion and they always match within .01 gravity points. and this has been the same through 3 hydrometers over the years.

not sure why some folks have problems. starting to think its guys who wear glasses or something...

What correction factor do you use?

1.00386

Logged

The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.

Am I reading between the lines correctly that the refractometer calculator in BeerSmith may be inaccurate when calculating fermented/ing wort?

once i got my correction factor adjusted through some trial/error, mine has never been off my hydrometer. I do both on occasion and they always match within .01 gravity points. and this has been the same through 3 hydrometers over the years.

not sure why some folks have problems. starting to think its guys who wear glasses or something...

Great All around resource! It seems everyone does it a little different. I somewhat follow Schedule (F) under Maturation of beer in this link except i pitch around 45 F let rise to 48F till near done. I dont secondary and lager on yeast in primary for around 3 to 4 weeks then rack to keg and hold at 30F for a month and carb and drink:).

Sean, do you have a link to a good set of pro brewer level hydrometers?

Any decent supplier will carry them as a set of three. They're large (~16" long) for high precision, generally cover something like 0-8, 8-16, and 16-24°P, and have a thermometer and correction scale. Just an example: http://www.gwkent.com/plato-hydrometers-with-build-inthermometer.html If you have a Foxx account, theirs are about half the price.